Feminist Standpoint Research Articles

Gadamer’s Hermeneutics as a Model For the Feminist Standpoint Theory

This work which reconstructs Gadamer’s hermeneutics for guiding feminist standpoint theory consists of five chapters. Firstly, several possible feminist standpoint theories and their difficulties in addressing how knowledge is situated yet true are clarified. Secondly, it will be examined that Gadamer’s proposal for the relevance of the historicity on the reaching to truth. Thirdly, we will discuss Gadamer’s notion of fusion of horizons as a way to reach to truth. Fourthly, we will elaborate Wasterling’s critique against Gadamer and some arguments that Gadamer’s hermeneutics substitutes feminist epistemology for masculine epistemology. Finally, this paper will evaluate Gadamer’s proposal for hermeneutics is appropriate for feminist standpoint theory, if so, how it is appropriate.

Women's Experiences and Perceptions of Depression in India: A Metaethnography.

In India, social determinants of health, including poverty, domestic violence, and inadequate social support disproportionately affect women, leaving them more vulnerable to depression than men. We conducted a metaethnography to synthesize qualitative data from 13 studies (1987-2017) that explored women's experiences and perceptions of depression in India. We used a feminist standpoint to critically examine how gender shapes these experiences and perceptions. Indian women's experiences of depression were embedded in their social worlds. Women perceived interpersonal conflict, caregiving burden, domestic violence, financial insecurity, adverse reproductive events and widowhood as causes of depression. Women used cultural expressions to describe physical, emotional, and cognitive distress. The detrimental impact of discriminatory social conditions, gender inequalities, and traditional gender roles on Indian women's mental health highlights the need for gender-sensitive mental health research and practice that can attend to women's sociocultural context and promote values of gender equality and social justice.

What About the Global South? Towards a Feminist Decolonial Degrowth Approach

Degrowth calls for a profound socio-ecological transformation towards a socially just and environmentally sound society. So far, the global dimensions of such a transformation in the Global North have arguably not received the required attention. This article critically reflects on the requirements of a degrowth approach that promotes global intragenerational justice without falling into the trap of reproducing (neo-)colonial continuities. Our account of social justice is inherently tied to questions of gender justice. A postcolonial reading of feminist standpoint theory provides the theoretical framework for the discussion. In responding to two main points of criticism raised by feminist scholars from the Global South, it is argued that degrowth activism and scholarship has to reflect on its coloniality and necessarily needs to seek alliances with social movements from around the world on equal footing. Acknowledging that this task is far from easy, some cornerstones of a feminist decolonial degrowth approach are outlined.

Using a Feminist Standpoint Perspective and Praxis Lens to Challenge Neoliberalism in Eurozone Austerity Policy

The economic downturn in Eurozone countries started in late 2007, and it continues today, over a decade later. Current Eurozone economic austerity policy is a quantitatively driven “one size fits all” policy whose goals are to decrease Eurozone countries’ debt through a set of “belt-tightening” measures that amount to massive cutbacks in the service sector. Such measures have been shown to negatively impact the most vulnerable within these societies—youth, the elderly, and single mothers and their children. This paper argues that applying a feminist standpoint approach and praxis provides a reflexive perspective for assessing the current framework and application of Eurozone austerity policies, as well as their social and economic consequences. The application of a feminist perspective and praxis assesses the degree to which austerity policy promotes social justice and transformative goals. It offers “out of the box” ways for re-thinking economic policies, which provide ways to integrate the voices and lived experiences of those most impacted by economic downturns.

Nurturing the erotic self: Benefits of women consuming sexually explicit materials

Using a feminist standpoint theoretical orientation, we explored the ways consumption of sexually explicit materials (SEM) could be beneficial to women’s overall well-being. For this study, 28 women were recruited from two female-oriented sexual health education establishments in Ontario, Canada and asked to participate in qualitative interviews. Our findings suggest that women derive personal and social benefits from their engagement with SEM. Overall, this research draws attention to the ways SEM consumption may strengthen women’s sexual subjectivity and provide outlets for women to learn about and experiment with their bodies and erotic selves.

Technology, Gender, and Climate Change: A Feminist Examination of Climate Technologies

In this article, I examine the subject of justice as it relates to gender and climate change by focusing on two specific strategies, namely, the geoengineering strategy of ocean fertilization, and renewable energy as a means of mitigation (where mitigation is understood as the adoption of technologies and practices that aim to slow the rise of greenhouse gas emissions). My overarching argument is that iron fertilization geoengineering is not consistent with the feminist values of justice embedded in feminist standpoint theory and feminist contextual empiricism. Alternative mitigation strategies, on the other hand, go much further in meeting these objectives and virtues.

Counter-planning from the kitchen: for a feminist critique of type

Whilst housing has long been a terrain of struggle in terms of its scale, provision, urban morphology and technological advancement, it often escapes a political critique of its interior logic. And yet, it is perhaps only from a political perspective that we might be able to see beyond the impasse we are witnessing. If most of the newly built stock conforms to models established more than a century ago, an increasing number of ‘experimental’ proposals reimagine domesticity with a chequered success that is surprising if we consider how ill-fitting the petit-bourgeois family flat is to our current conditions. In such a conjuncture the concept of type seems to be still a useful ground for debate as it helps us to read housing as a tool for the construction of subjects.At the core of this mandate crisis lies a great unsaid non-said of western society, namely the role played by the house in the institutionalisation of reproductive labour. Reproductive labour is the care, education and actual production of the labour force from childbearing to housework to the care of the elderly—a form of labour that, before mature capitalism, was never seen as separate from other productive activities. In this sense, this paper assumes a feminist standpoint in that it re-reads modern housing as the place of women’s hidden, unwaged work, and typological discourse as the intellectual and technical arsenal that has allowed the fine tuning of such a labour system.The hypothesis that will be explored is that reproductive labour itself is undergoing a large-scale shift that architecture is struggling to register. In order to understand this shift, we will look at the recent architectural production of three nations—the Netherlands, Switzerland and Japan—where a strong design culture has met an acute awareness of the recent changes in the organisation of work. Looking at work by MVRDV, Christian Kerez and SANAA, we will try to construct a map of possible solutions for housing beyond reproductive labour—and, perhaps, beyond type itself.

Iranian Feminist Activists and Critical Media Literacy

Abstract Considering the exponential growth of technology and media in Iranian society as well as the significant role of media culture in reproducing, reinforcing, and legitimizing dominant ideologies such as sexism, the central question posed by this paper is how Iranian feminist activists critically analyze media messages. Further, this paper explores the extent to which this analysis fits the critical media literacy framework. Using a critical media literacy framework underpinned by feminist standpoint theory, this paper presents results from qualitative interviews with 15 Iranian feminist activists. We find that Iranian feminist activists focus more on politics of representation and critique of gender ideology in the critical analysis of media products. Thus, critical analysis of media by Iranian feminist activists better fits the definition of critical media literacy than its core concepts. The findings also demonstrate that a transformative dimension of critical media literacy is ignored by the feminist activists despite using media in the struggle against dominant gender ideology.

A Study on the Change of Representing Female Characters in <New World> and <V.I.P>

본 연구는 박훈정 감독의 <신세계>와 <브이아이피>를 통해 한국 사회의 변화에 따른 한국 범죄 영화 속 여성혐오의 양상을 알아보고자 한다. 2010년대 중반 이후 한국 사회는 장기적인 경제 침체와 페미니즘 담론의 부각을 마주했고 이로 인해 한국 남성들은 남성성 상실의 위기에 처하게 되었다. 이에 따라 2010년대 중반 이전에 제작된 <신세계>에서는 전형적인 남성성의 부각이 드러나지만, 2010년대 중반 이후에 제작된 <브이아이피>에서는 거세된 남성성이 나타나게 된다. 그리고 이러한 변화는 두 작품 속 여성 재현의 문제로 이어진다. 장 루이 보드리는 영화적 장치가 관객들에게 이데올로기적 효과를 주입한다고 주장하였으며, 로라 멀비는 이러한 주장을 여성주의적 관점에서 발전시킨다. 멀비는 주류 상업 영화에서 내러티브를 이끌어가며 시선을 담지하는 인물이 대부분 남성이라는 점을 지적하였고, 그에 반해 여성은 수동적이고 ‘보여지는’ 위치에 놓이게 된다고 주장하였다. <신세계>와 <브이아이피> 속 여성 재현은 멀비의 주장을 뒷받침하는 예시라 할 수 있다. <신세계>와 <브이아이피>에는 여성 신체의 훼손과 여성 인물의 수동성이 두드러지게 나타나기 때문이다. 하지만 앞서도 지적했듯 이러한 양상은 2010년대 중반 이후의 남성성 상실을 기준으로, 즉 <신세계>에서 <브이아이피>로 이행하며 더욱 심화된다. <신세계>의 전형적 남성성은 내러티브의 흐름 속에서 거세 공포를 유발한 여성을 처벌하고자 하지만, <브이아이피>의 거세된 남성성은 여성을 해함으로써 자신의 권위를 인정받으려 하기 때문에 무차별적인 여성 살해가 발생한다. 또한 <신세계>에서는 남성 중심 사회에서 부속품처럼 취급되는 여성의 모습을 그려내지만, <브이아이피> 속 여성은 시체나 피해자로서만 등장하며 그 수동성이 더욱 심화된다.This study analyzed the aspects of misogyny in the Korean crime film according to the changes in Korean society focused on Park Hoonjung’s <New World> and <V.I.P.>. Entering the mid-2010s, Korean society faced a prolonged economic crisis and revival of feminism discourse. In this reality, Korean men are in danger of losing their masculinity. Thus <New world>, which was produced before the mid-2010s, has a typical masculinity, but <V.I.P>, which was produced after the mid-2010s, has desexualized masculinity. This change leads to the issue of representing female characters in the two works. Jean-Louis Baudry argued that the film infused an ideological effect on audiences, and Laura Mulvey developed this argument based on feminist standpoint. She pointed out that most men lead narratives in Hollywood films, while women are placed in a passive position. The female representation in <New World> and <V.I.P> is an example of her argument. Because the films feature the damaged female body and the passive women. This is further exacerbated by the transition from <New World> to <V.I.P> based on the loss of masculinity since the mid-2010s. While the typical masculinity in <New World> punishes women for causing castration fear, the desexualized masculinity in <V.I.P> tries to be recognized authority by hurting women. In addition, <New World> shows women treated like an accessory in a male-dominated society, but women in <V.I.P> appear only as dead bodies or victims, further increasing their passiveity.

Indonesian Women’s Struggle Towards Transformation: A Case from ‘Rusunawa’ Community

This article discusses roles of women in struggling transformation within their community. As one of governmental policies in 2015 about eradication of slum areas under BasukiTjahajaPurnama (&amp;lsquo;Ahok&amp;rsquo;) as previous governor of Jakarta, many flats were built and provided to those who became the target of that program. It&amp;rsquo;s called &amp;lsquo;Rusunawa&amp;rsquo;&amp;mdash;low cost simple flat. Researchers choose &amp;lsquo;Rusunawa&amp;rsquo; Pulogebang (the first flat located on East Jakarta) as the locus of research. Unfortunately, there are new social problems emerge. One of them is adaptation matter: changing habits from previous location to new situation. Crashed by new system&amp;mdash;such as paying room regularly every month meanwhile having no permanent job/work yet&amp;mdash;occurs seriously impact until now. Besides that, losing home also keep them traumatic. In such situation, not all people can change their way of life rapidly till some women&amp;mdash;driven by awareness&amp;mdash;striving for changing the community decisively by various sustainable efforts. Therefore, this qualitative research will analyze the three main ideas in Feminist Standpoint Theory: knowledge, experience and power relation. Intrinsic case study is used to get in-depth inquiry. Also, researchers conduct as participant observers and in-depth interviewers towards key informants and community itself. Finally, based on critical paradigm, the results show that those women succeed to lead the community towards social transformation in health, education, economic, and leadership fields.

Faraway, So Close: Seeing the Intimacy in Goodreads Reviews

Book reviews written by readers and published on digital sites such as Goodreads are a new force in contemporary book culture. This article uses feminist standpoint theory to investigate the language used in Goodreads reviews to better understand how these reviewers articulate intimate reading experiences. A total of 692 reviews of seven bestselling fiction and nonfiction books are analyzed by two methods. The first, thematic content analysis, involves close reading of the reviews. The second, sentiment analysis, is an automated “distant reading” process. These methods prompt us, as researchers, to reflect on the way they foster or inhibit a sense of proximity to readers, even as they reveal predominant features of Goodreads reviews. Together, the methods reveal that 86.1% of Goodreads reviews describe a reading experience, and 68% specifically mention an emotional reaction to the book, with the emotion most intense in reviews of fiction. Reviews also create social connections by mentioning other readers, authors, characters, and people from the reviewer’s life. Through their emotional language and sociality, Goodreads reviews present distinctive, intimate reading practices, constituting a new cultural phenomenon, and a unique opportunity for investigation.

How Thai Women Manage Living in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence.

Although there is literature that describes coping strategies of women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV), the definitions of common coping strategies and the two-dimensional model of coping styles (emotion-or problem-focused) may not fully delineate how these women manage their day-to-day lives. Using an Interpretive Description method and feminist standpoint principles, in-depth interviews were conducted with 40 Thai women regarding how they managed living in the context of IPV. Data were analyzed using an iterative thematic analysis procedure. In this study, the highly changeable and adaptive strategies use by participants could not be easily categorized into emotion-or action/problem-focused. Indeed, the strategies used by Thai women in this study were better described as survival focused. Based on our analysis, the process of managing their day-to-day life in the context of IPV revealed six major themes: keeping silent, disconnect between the fantasy of love and reality, seeking emotional support, ambivalence surrounding leaving, living with negative emotions, and despair and suicide. An undercurrent that was woven throughout multiple themes was the dominant lens of motherhood through which women made day-to-day decisions. These data also highlight the specific impacts that Thai society and religious beliefs have on increasing the risk of IPV and maintaining its duration. All levels of government, religious leaders, and public policy makers must engage in intersectoral initiatives to make public what is now private. Social and health service providers must create safe spaces where women can disclose IPV and where they can get funded multilevel supports to help them live independent of violence. The participants' stories give voice to why Thai health professionals need to fully engage with women to understand the past and current contexts of women's lives and how their experiences impact their health.

The Role of Feminist Standpoint and Intersectionality Epistemologies in Providing Insights into the Causes of Gender Disparity in Higher Education

Higher education plays a critical role in society’s development, particularly in the current era of globalization in which knowledge-based innovations are critical for development. However, women’s underrepresentation in higher education remains a persistent issue of concern, particularly, in sub-Saharan Africa. The gender gap in higher education is created by complex interconnected sets of deep-rooted factors. A clear understanding of the underlying causes of gender inequality in higher education is necessary to develop effective interventions to overcome this disparity. Feminist standpoint and feminist intersectionality epistemologies have been used to provide insights into gender disparities in higher education. Drawing on existing published literature, I will discuss the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of these two feminist epistemologies and explore the methodological implications of these epistemologies for critically examining gender disparities in higher education in the context of sub-Saharan Africa.&#x0D; Keywords: epistemology, feminism, gender, higher education, intersectionality

The Feminist Question in Realism

Feminist standpoint theory and critical realism both offer resources to sociologists interested in making arguments that account for causal complexity and epistemic distortion. However, the impasse between these paradigms limits their utility. In this article, I argue that critical realism has much to gain from a confrontation with feminist theory. Feminist theory’s emphasis on boundary-crossing epistemologies and gendered bodies can help critical realism complicate its notion of the bifurcation between epistemology and ontology. But taking feminist theory seriously also involves careful attention to the risks of epistemic violence, to questions about credible witnesses. I argue that both paradigms will be improved by better theorization of (1) ideology as part of social ontology and (2) interactions between the context of knowledge production and social ontology. Attending to what is missing, distorted, or occluded between the knower, knowledge, and object of knowledge can provide resources for theorizing social ontology.

Exploring community capacity: Karen refugee women’s mental health

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe Karen refugee women’s experience of resettlement and the factors which structured community capacity to support their mental health and well-being.Design/methodology/approachA postcolonial and feminist standpoint was used to bring Karen women’s voice to the knowledge production process. Data were collected through ethnographic field observation, in-depth semi-structured individual and focus group interviews with Karen women as well as healthcare and social service providers.FindingsThree interrelated themes emerged from the data: Karen women’s construction of mental health as “stress and worry”; gender, language and health literacy intersected, shaping Karen women’s access to health care and social resources; flexible partnerships between settlement agencies, primary care and public health promoted community capacity but were challenged by neoliberalism.Research limitations/implicationsKaren women and families are a diverse group with a unique historical context. Not all the findings are applicable across refugee women.Practical implicationsThis paper highlights the social determinants of mental health for Karen women and community responses for mitigating psychological distress during resettlement.Social implicationsPublic health policy requires a contextualized understanding of refugee women’s mental health. Health promotion in resettlement must include culturally safe provision of health care to mitigate sources of psychological distress during resettlement.Originality/valueThis research brings a postcolonial and feminist analysis to community capacity as a public health strategy.

Solving Journalism’s Post-Truth Crisis With Feminist Standpoint Epistemology

This essay proposes using feminist standpoint epistemology (FSE) to help journalists and scholars who increasingly find their credibility, authority, knowledge, and even their sincerity undermined. FSE foregrounds particularity and experience, arguing that the ways that bodies of knowledge are socially situated and embodied limits but also enables what one can know. I first outline some of the relevant principles of FSE, in order to suggest its applicability to journalism. Then I demonstrate how FSE explains professional journalism issues brought into the open by recent news exposés of work-related sexual harassment, including harassment perpetrated by journalists themselves.

Re-conceptualizing pain through patient-centred care in the complementary and alternative medicine therapeutic relationship.

The study aim was to understand the patient description of the therapeutic relationship with their CAM provider in the context ofpain self-management. Because pain is a subjective state, its assessment depends on patient perception of and response to pain. For nurses to provide empathetic and compassionate care, there is a need to explicate patient perceptions of the therapeutic relationship to (re)conceptualize models of patient-centred care. Inductive qualitative content analysis of patient interviews was conducted to identify how patients described therapeutic relationship themes and understand self-management of pain. Participants were individuals working with a CAM practitioner and solicited through purposive and snowball sampling in collaboration with the practitioners from the mid-Atlantic region of the United States in 2016 (N=13). Verbatim transcriptions of audio-recorded semi-structured in-depth interviews (430 single-spaced pages approximately) were content analysed. Patients described the therapeutic relationship with the provider as a: (1) giver, who was "in-tune" with their sense of self to support self-affirmation through empathetic listening; and (2) guide, who connected the mind and body through their practice to support self-reflective learning. This description of the CAM therapeutic relationship advances understandings of readjustment of patient relationship with pain through the provider's empathetic listening and connecting the mind and the body to support patient self-affirmation of pain experiences and self-reflective learning. The findings illuminate how a feminist standpoint contributes to understandings of the therapeutic relationship that centres patient subjectivity and co-construction of meaning-making processes to support self-management of pain.

A Dissection of Experiential Learning Theory: Alternative Approaches to Reflection

The concept of reflection is central to theories of experiential learning common in the field of adult education. In this article, we expand upon the work of Michelson on the dualistic split between experience and knowing inherent in the field’s most common conceptualizations of reflection. We develop alternative approaches to reflection drawing from feminist standpoint theory and theories of embodied knowing. We identify and discuss how each alternative approach points to different positioning of the concept of reflection in experiential learning. We highlight how the alternative positioning of reflection in experiential learning relates to adult education practice through narrative building and the recognition of prior learning. We also identify what we believe are implications of our reconceptualization of reflection for theories of adult learning.

How Do Feminist-Identified Women Cope With Discrimination? A Feminist Standpoint and Grounded Theory Study

Women experience a higher incidence of mental health concerns compared to men, and scholars have located these challenges within a discriminatory sociocultural context. Although scholars have suggested that feminist attitudes may shield women from discrimination, research on the protective role of feminist attitudes is discrepant and suggests that there are distinct differences between those who do and do not self-identify as feminist; namely, self-identifiers may be more protected in the face of discrimination. Utilizing grounded theory and intersectional feminist standpoint methodologies, in this study we sought to understand the ways that self-identified womanist and feminist women cope with discrimination. We found that women’s feminist and cultural identities intersected, each informing the other and influencing coping mechanisms and well-being. Moreover, results demonstrated that feminist women call upon a variety of different coping mechanisms in response to discrimination, including advocacy, social support, self-care, cognitive processes, disengagement, connecting to one’s femininity, and religion and spirituality. Although possessing a feminist and/or womanist identity appeared to be protective in some cases, at other times it did not. Some participants expressed feeling marginalized from the feminist community and felt that their greater awareness of oppression was an additional source of distress. Based on these findings, we provide suggestions for mental health clinicians and research scholars.

Curricular standpoints and native feminist theories: Why native feminist theories should matter to curriculum studies

In this article I provide a brief overview of feminist standpoint theories, as well as how Native feminist theories complicate and enrich this political and epistemic tradition. Following this overview, I introduce Wayne Au’s conception of curricular standpoint theory as a contemporary and productive use of feminist standpoint theory to address the politics of curriculum. After outlining the affordances and enactments of curricular standpoint theory, I illustrate how curricular standpoint theory loses sight of its feminist genealogy and commitments. I argue that in order for curricular standpoint theorizing to be politically and pedagogically effective, it must remain accountable to both its feminist roots as well as Native feminist critiques. To gesture toward the generative analyses and practices Native feminist theorizing offers curricular standpoint theory and the field of curriculum theory, I outline several Native feminist theories of curriculum that demonstrate how curricular knowledge production can remain accountable to Indigenous peoples, lands, and decolonial struggles. Attending to Native feminist theories is epistemically and politically advantageous, as well as an ethical imperative for theorizing within settler nation-states on Indigenous lands. Beyond contributing to more vigorous and just modes of inquiry and knowledge production, I offer that Native feminist theories can also generate new ways of being and doing that counter colonial logics and further decolonial futures.